Rapidly escalating food prices are already becoming the trigger for social unrest in multiple locations. When combined with the simultaneous increase in the price of fuel, the probability of social unrest leading to violence is growing. Finding solutions to global food insecurity has moved from being a humanitarian crisis to become an international security imperative.
While war is raging grain stocks can’t safely leave Ukraine at the moment, and may be wasted rather than helping alleviate food shortages. Efforts to find alternatives to grain export via the Black Sea are being explored but they can’t compensate for the loss of maritime commerce. A maritime dimension is an essential element of a response to the food security impact of lost Ukrainian grain exports.
Can the export of grain from Ukraine be facilitated through an international military intervention? Admiral James Stavridis, a former NATO Supreme Allied Commander Europe, has suggested exploring a convoy system for commercial shipping entering and leaving the Ukrainian port of Odessa.
This paper explores what such an intervention might look like as well as the legal, political and military obstacles that might stand in its way. In summary, based on a decision of the UN General Assembly an international task force should be organized with participation from countries most affected by food insecurity as well as those with the necessary capabilities. Commercial shipping should be arranged together with the relevant international federations and should ideally include Chinese and Indian vessels.
Security risk could be further reduced by considering how to include Russia into the international operation, for example by providing sanctions relief for payments associated with grain export carried out to alleviate international food insecurity under the auspices of the United Nations.
Background and Rationale
Rapidly escalating food prices are already becoming the trigger for social unrest in multiple locations. When combined with the simultaneous increase in the price of fuel, the probability of social unrest leading to violence is growing. Finding solutions to global food insecurity has moved from being a humanitarian crisis to become an international security imperative.
In a recent publication SIPRI experts drew attention to the crisis in global food insecurity. The baseline number of people facing food insecurity was assessed to be 161 million people worldwide at the end of 2021, and the number is said to be expanding rapidly. Within that group around 45 million people were assessed to be on the verge of famine.[1]
There is no single explanation for global food insecurity. Conflicts, climate change and disease pandemic are the main drivers, but the war in Ukraine is a contributing factor. The World Food Programme (WFP) which used to source half of the grain used in their in-kind assistance programmes from Ukraine, has explained that Ukraine and Russia together account for a significant share of global grain output.[2] According to the United Nations (UN), very little of the harvested grains in storage facilities in Ukraine today can be brought to the international market, and the same may be true for future production. As facilities are not being emptied, there is no storage space remaining for new harvests. A large amount of harvested grain is likely to go to waste even as a many people face food insecurity and famine.
In response to the global food crisis SIPRI experts advocated a ‘nexus approach’ bringing together humanitarian, development and peacebuilding actors, including policymakers, national governments, donor governments, the UN, local and international NGOs, and research institutions.[3] Is there also a military contribution to the nexus approach? Specifically, can the export of grain from Ukraine be facilitated through an international military intervention on humanitarian grounds? What might such an intervention look like and what legal, political and military obstacles might stand in its way?
Current measures to reduce the impact of the war in Ukraine on food security
The main obstacle to exporting grain from Ukraine is the blockade of the port of Odessa. Shipments through the Black Sea have been the dominant means by which Ukrainian grain has left the country.
In what Russia still describes as a ‘special military operation’ Ukrainian ports are not under a formal blockade. Russia is a signatory to the 1909 Declaration of London on the Naval Laws of War, and therefore recognizes that a blockade is an act of war.[4] By announcing a military operation to block all maritime movement to or from a port or coast—the maritime equivalent of a siege—Russia would also be declaring war on Ukraine. However, monitors of commercial shipping have reported on a dramatic reduction in maritime traffic close to Ukrainian coast after 22 February 2022. Russia’s actions may have equivalent effect without any formal declaration.
After the invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022 Russian naval activity has extended to the entire Ukrainian coastline including the bombardment of Odessa and movement of amphibious landing craft closer to the coast. Ukrainian coastal defences, including the successful use of anti-ship missiles, have moved Russian warships further from the coast. Although there is little public information, both Russia and Ukraine may have used sea mines close to Odessa and perhaps in other sea spaces.[5]
The active military operations are clearly a disincentive to commercial shipping. Conscious of the risk to seamen, the shipping industry has discouraged commercial shipping in the northern Black Sea and the Sea of Azov. At an emergency meeting of the group that brings together representatives of employer associations and organized labour the area was designated a Warlike Operations Area, sending a strong signal to shipping companies to avoid sending ships to Ukrainian ports.[6] A secondary effect of industry action has been a rapid increase in the cost of insuring commercial vessels entering the northern Black Sea, which has reinforced the reluctance to carry out trade.
After the annexation of Crimea in 2014 Russian Navy and Coast Guard vessels harassed, interdicted and inspected ships going to ports in the Sea of Azov. After 24 February Russia closed the Sea of Azov to foreign shipping, leaving roughly 100 commercial vessels ‘stranded’.[7] The Russian navy boarded some commercial vessels travelling to Ukrainian ports in the early days of the conflict and in at least four cases ships were sunk.[8]
Measures to reduce the impact of the war in Ukraine on food security
A number of approaches to reducing the impact of the war in Ukraine either are being explored or could be explored. G7 participating states have called on Russia to cease immediately attacks on key transport infrastructure in Ukraine so that they can be used for exporting Ukrainian agricultural products. The G7 also plan to form a Global Alliance for Food Security to address food insecurity in a comprehensive way.[9] However, these measures will have very little, if any, immediate impact on the situation in Ukraine.
European railway networks are being organized in an attempt to offset the loss of access to maritime transport. So-called “green corridors” are being established that will accelerate railway traffic between Ukraine and European ports on the Baltic Sea.[10] Romania and Moldova are working to repair and upgrade a railway connection from Ukraine to Romanian ports on the Black Sea.[11]
Roughly 90 per cent of Ukrainian commodity exports were previously made by sea, and the use of land corridors can’t compensate for the loss of seaborne trade. Bottlenecks caused by the need to transfer cargo from narrow to wide guage trains and wagons at the border of the European Union limit to the volumes that can be sent through the railway system, and the Ukrainian National Agrarian Forum estimate that it would take two years to move grain currently in storage in Ukraine by rail.[12]
Russian grain exports
Grain exports from Russia are also a main contributor to global food security. Russian exports are also suffering disruption, though the reasons are different from those impacting Ukraine.
The port of Novorossiysk has been progressively upgraded to become the principal Black Sea deep-water port through which Russian grain is exported.[13] Shipments out of the upgraded grain terminal are said to be expanding, perhaps partly because international prices are attracting Russian grain producers to export rather than sell on the domestic market.[14]
The main obstacle to Russian grain export is the impact of international economic and financial sanctions.[15] Reciprocal sanctions imposed by countries in Europe and Russia have taken away the European market for Russian grain. Financial sanctions imposed on Russia have impacted the payment system for global sales. The depreciation in the value of the rouble has made Russian grain cheaper, but relatively few countries make rouble payments—India being an important exception. If payments are made in US dollars or another western currency they are captured by financial sanctions that make it hard for Russian producers to access accounts.
Some Ukrainian grain is also said to be leaving the Black Sea in Russian commercial vessels as a form of sanctions evasion. It is alleged that grain confiscated from Ukrainian stocks in areas occuped by Russia is being shipped to Syria, from where it is smuggled to neighbouring countries for sale.[16]
The framing of a mission to open Odessa for grain exports
If it is correct that a maritime route is an essential element of any plan to release Ukrainian grain onto world markets, then it is clear from the above that civilian shipping will not be able to resume commerce under present conditions.
Major navies have played an important role in humanitarian relief operations in the past because they own some unique equipment that can be rapidly mobilized and moved to affected areas.[17] Although they are not able to move the same quantities of bulk cargo as a civilian carrier, there are unarmed fast response ships owned by NATO navies in the Mediterranean that could reach Odessa in less than 48 hours.[18]
If unescorted, unarmed naval vessels would be vulnerable to Russian interdiction. Russia’s naval actions in the Black Sea are partly an element of economic warfare, and also partly intended to block the supply of equipment from the large number of countries that have agreed to provide Ukraine with military assistance.
Admiral James Stavridis has suggested exploring ‘an escort system for Ukrainian (and other national) merchant ships that want to go in and out of Odessa’.[19] There are precedents for naval operations to protect commercial shipping in war zones but they are not risk-free.
In the 1980s, during the Iran-Iraq War, Iraq was attacking oil tankers leaving the Gulf with cruise missiles and Iran was laying sea mines in the path of commercial shipping. The United States reflagged Kuwaiti oil tankers and escorted them under the protection of the US Navy. However, even though the mission was to protect commercial shipping, the operation did lead to direct confrontation with the Iranian Navy. When an Iranian minelayer was seized the US returned the crew to Iran but destroyed the ship, and a chain of events eventually led to the accidental shoot-down of an Iranian airliner and the death of 290 passengers.
A naval operation in the Black Sea might be justified on the grounds that Russia is restricting freedom of navigation. The US Navy explains that the purpose of a Freedom of Navigation Operation (FONOP) is ‘to maintain the global mobility of U.S. forces and unimpeded commerce by protesting and challenging attempts by coastal States to unlawfully restrict access to the seas’.[20] FONOPs are deliberate acts in locations where coastal states are considered to make excessive maritime claims and, by definition, are likely to be contested. However, NATO leaders have taken care to emphasize that the military activities being taken in support of Ukraine exclude actions that invite a direct clash with Russian armed forces. Moreover, not only would consensus around a collective FONOP be unlikely in NATO, the risk of a clash involving the US Navy and Russian armed forces would probably dissuade commercial operators from contributing their ships to the operation.
There have been several examples of international naval cooperation to address serious security challenges that might be more applicable. Many navies from around the world have worked together to reduce the risk of piracy around the Gulf of Aden, the Horn of Africa and in the Indian Ocean. Navies from as far away as Colombia and New Zealand have worked under a US-led Combined Task Force, while China, Japan and South Korea have coordinated their independent naval contributions with this international force.
The legal dimensions of an international humanitarian mission
On May 19 2022 the United States arranged an open debate on ‘the critical links between conflict, food security, and Putin’s war on Ukraine’ during its Presidency of the UN Security Council.[21] At the meeting of ministers prior to the debate the US Secretary of State Antony Blinken noted that: ‘Governments and international organizations can also come together to compel the Russian Federation to create corridors so that food and other vital supplies can safely leave Ukraine by land or by sea.’[22]
The risk that a naval operation could become the flashpoint that triggers an escalating confrontation at sea would be reduced if an international mission was framed as a humanitarian action to reduce the global food insecurity crisis. The Secretary General of the United Nations is already trying to find ways to mitigate the impact of war on food security worldwide. Arranging the discussion of a convoy operation under UN auspices could be a way to reduce the risk of a major power confrontation at sea.
Engagement through the United Nations would also underline the humanitarian objectives of the operation. Most of the grain stocks held in Ukraine have already been sold, and an operation to facilitate commercial agreements could dilute the perception of humanitarian intervention. However, Ukraine was the largest supplier of food to humanitarian agencies, such as the World Food Programme. Making delivery of stored grain to the programme a first priority would reinforce the humanitarian nature of the undertaking.
Russia can veto action in the Security Council and it is unlikely that an operation could be authorized by that body. However, in the recent debates over the war in Ukraine it has been pointed out that the General Assembly has the authority to step in when the Security Council is unable to act.
The General Assembly can ‘make recommendations to the wider UN membership for collective measures to maintain or restore international peace and security’, and as early as 1956 that power was used to establish a UN Emergency Force in the Middle East.[23]
A key issue for an operation of the kind discussed would be how Turkey interprets rights and obligations under the 1936 Convention Regarding the Regime of the Straits (the Montreux Convention). Turkey has defined the military action in Ukraine as a war, meaning that the Turkish Straits that control access to the Black Sea are closed to warships other than those of littoral states returning to their home port.
Under the Convention Turkey can suspend the obligation to close the straits to warships in wartime if Turkey itself is a belligerent or if Turkey decides that it is in ‘imminent danger’ as a result of the war. Turkish engagement and consent would be an essential element in constructing a convoy operation.[24]
Elements of a naval task force
The potential for commercial shipping convoys to be “in harms way” in an area where a major military power is undertaking naval operations would require a naval task force equipped with at least the following capabilities.
- Defensive systems able to threats from manned aircraft and from cruise missile strikes.
- Mine countermeasure ships able to sweep in front of a convoy to open a clear channel.
- Anti-submarine warfare capabilities to protect against torpedo attacks.
- Marine forces sufficient to prevent the boarding and seizure of ships in a convoy.
- There is no guarantee that a task force could protect all of the commercial ships in a convoy, and provision would have to be made for damage control, the evacuation of seamen and medical attention for any wounded, search and rescue.
If the channel for convoys entering and leaving Odessa followed the coastline close to Romania and Bulgaria then a number of these capabilities might be shore-based.
The commercial participation in convoys
The International Maritime Employers’ Council (IMEC) brings together representatives of major shipping companies in an association where issues of common concern are discussed. The International Transport Workers’ Federation (ITF) brings together representatives from the trades unions that represent workers in the transport industry. The IMEC and ITF have created a Joint Negotiating Forum (JNF) where they can reach agreements.
The JNF would be a logical partner for discussions about how to compose convoys of commercial carriers. Identifying the ships that would be best able to cope with either accidental or deliberate damage sustained in convoy operations would be an important part of reducing the risks to seamen and ships to acceptable levels.
As part of the process of developing the international convoy operation it would be valuable to reach out to the China Ocean Shipping Company (COSCO), which has extensive knowledge and experience of the Black Sea. A convoy containing Chinese vessels would be less vulnerable to interdiction or harassment.
Reaching out to Russia
As noted above, Russia has multiple military objectives in the Black Sea. Preventing the military assistance that is now being provided by many countries from reaching Ukraine is one priority. The Russian Navy is also choking off the main avenue for the export of commodities that form an important part of the Ukrainian economy. Finally, public statements suggest that one Russian war aim is to control the Black Sea coast in order to create a land bridge to Russian forces stationed in the enclave of Transnistria in Moldova.
By making an international operation of the kind described above it would be easy to ensure a level of transparency sufficient to reassure Russia that convoys are not bringing military equipment into Ukraine. It would be possible to host Russian observers in the convoy, for example.
The international operation would undermine Russia’s other objectives, however. Ensuring the safety and security of Odessa would effectively prevent any Russian control over the entire Black Sea coastline. Moreover, facilitating the export of grain from Ukraine would generate hard currency for the Ukrainian government.
Working with the countries that have imposed sanctions a payment system could be designed that would give Russian exporters access to the funds generated from their grain exports. An incentive for Russia to participate in the international humanitarian operation could be created if legal pathways for hard currency payments for Russian grain exports became possible.
While the offer to participate should be extended, whether or not to join in the international operation would be a matter for Russia to decide.
Final observations
The scale and impact of the global food security crisis now justifies immediate action. As one part of that international response the obstacles that are preventing grain export from Ukraine by sea should be removed, including using military means if necessary.
